http://www.flashandmath.com/ News from www.flashandmath.com -- a large and growing collection of open source, free ActionScript 3 tutorials for Flash CS3. en-us Sat, 13 Mar 2010 14:00:00 EST Sat, 13 Mar 2010 14:00:00 EST barbara@flashandmath.com barbara@flashandmath.com http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/colortrans/ It is as easy as typing Color.interpolateColor(color1,color2,progress). The Color class does all the work of linearly interpolating between the red, green and blue components for any two colors. The effect is a smooth, gradual transition. Sat, 13 Mar 2010 14:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/colortrans/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/color/ We present an interactive 3D particle animation which demonstrates the relationship between the red, green, blue (RGB) color model and the hue, saturation, value (HSV) model. The former is best visualized on a cube, the latter on a cone. Rotate and move the RGB cube in 3D, have it morph into the HSV cone and back. Download the complete code. Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/color/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/kal3mir/ Three mirror kaleidoscope generates much richer symmetry patterns than the most common, centrally symmetric two mirror kaleidoscope. With the help from the Graphics.copyFrom method new to Flash Player 10, we create a three mirror kaleidoscope AS3 class. You provide a vector or a bitmap image and the class generates multiple beautiful patterns. Sun, 28 Feb 2010 20:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/kal3mir/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/sliderstepper/ A simple but interesting example of how the behavior and properties of the Slider and the NumericStepper components can be controlled programmatically. In the example, an instance of Slider and an instance of NumericStepper control each other each other as well as the transparency an object. Wed, 24 Feb 2010 22:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/sliderstepper/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/seuss/ Glowing lights fly up into the air and leave behind trails that look like colorful twisted stalactites. The effect looks like something in the style of Dr. Seuss, or perhaps like something out of the movie Avatar. Full source code is available to download. Sun, 21 Feb 2010 20:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/seuss/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/flower/ A spectacular 3D particle effect with full source code ready to download. An image of a flower explodes into a 3D helix. Watch the colorful particles twist and fly through space, or turn off the automatic mode and use the sliders to control the motion and geometry of the particle cloud. The code involves z-buffering of particles, interactive quaternion-based rotation, and bitmap filters. Mon, 15 Feb 2010 21:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/flower/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/intermediate/ghost/ If you'd like to start creating your own cool particle effects, this tutorial is for you. We use one particle and explain how to code the effect of a particle leaving a fading 'ghostly' trail while moving. We also explain how to draw to a Bitmap, which is at the heart of most particle effects. And how to use ColorTransform. Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/intermediate/ghost/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/repeatbutton/ We show how to easily create a button that behaves like an alarm clock setting button: it speeds up display changes when pressed and held down for a while. The effect is easy to accomplish as the 'delay' property of the Timer object can be adjusted programmatically on the fly. Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/repeatbutton/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/zsort/ In Flash Player 10 one can literally 'build' 3D objects by placing their elements in the 3D space. Such objects can be rotated easily. The z-sorting, however, has to be done 'by hand'. In this tutorial, we show that with the effects of perspective projection, sorting by the z-coordinate does not work very well. Instead, we sort with respect to the distance from the observer. Mon, 01 Feb 2010 22:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/zsort/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/datagrid/ The very useful DataGrid component manages a table of data. It conveniently has methods for adding, removing and replacing entries, and it also has the ability to sort entries via a simple click on a column heading. In this tutorial, we show how to use the DataGrid component for drawing a simple scatter plot, a statistical graph appropriate for this data-oriented component. Sat, 30 Jan 2010 19:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/datagrid/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/pptip/ A simple but useful tip concerning native 3D methods of Flash Player 10. Problem: If you assign a custom instance of PerspectiveProjection to an InteractiveObject, you lose interactivity. Solution: Create a 2D container for the object and assign a PespectiveProjection instance to the container. Mon, 25 Jan 2010 14:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/pptip/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/cylinouter/ An XML-customizable, versatile gallery on a rotating 3D cylinder viewed from the outside. Interesting shading effects! The tutorial includes many useful custom AS3 classes: multiple image loader, a preloader and more. Sun, 24 Jan 2010 19:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/cylinouter/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/snow/ We present a custom AS3 SnowDisplay class which can be used to create a variety of realistic 3D snow animations that include turbulence and wind effects. You can superimpose the animated snow over your image. You can create two instances of the class with small flakes and larger flakes, and place your graphics in between the instances creating an incredibly real-looking effect. We use Perlin noise, the parallax effect, particle techniques, and physical modelling. Tue, 19 Jan 2010 23:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/snow/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/cylingallery/ An awesome cylindrical 3D photo gallery that can be fully customized by editing a simple XML file. Sit in the center of the cylinder and watch the images revolve around you. The application uses native 3D methods of Flash Player 10. One of the technical details reveals a rather counterintuintive behavior of the custom PerspectiveProjection. We show how to overcome it. Mon, 18 Jan 2010 18:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/cylingallery/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/tweenspinner/ A simple AS3 how-to in which we show basic methods and properties of the Tween class. We also show how to generate random integers in a given range via the Math.random() method. We construct a simple game spinner as an example. Sun, 10 Jan 2010 23:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/tweenspinner/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/circlefill/ What if you need to fill shapes that go beyond the simple shapes built into ActionScript? For example, you may need to create fills the are sectors of a circle or other less common shapes. The trick is to approximate such shapes with polygonal shapes and draw the polygons the standard way. In this easy How-To, we show how to do it. Sun, 03 Jan 2010 18:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/circlefill/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/events/ In this AS3 How-Tos and Tips entry, we illustrate a few less known but very important facts about AS3 mouse events. Among others, we demonstrate the difference between MOUSE_OVER and MOUSE_OUT versus ROLL_OVER and ROLL_OUT. We show the Flash Player level event Event.MOUSE_LEAVE in action, and examine MOUSE_UP when the cursor is outside of the display area. Tue, 29 Dec 2009 01:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/events/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/multi/ We show how to create a spectacular 3D spotlight and shadow effect in which a multicolored object is dynamically illuminated. The effect extends our recent moving spotlight tutorial to multicolored objects. It is achieved via 2D masking, filtering and blend modes tricks. Mon, 21 Dec 2009 13:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/multi/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/intermediate/spot/ We present an effect in which an object, in our example text, is illuminated by a moving spotlight, with a shadow cast on a wall behind the text. The effect is three-dimensional, but we are not using any of the native 3D methods in Flash. Rather, the effect is achieved with some clever layering and masking. Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/intermediate/spot/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/waterfall/ We present a particle effect of a spectacular, dynamic waterfall. By manipulating parameters, you can easily customize the look and the feel of your waterfall. You can choose a transparent background and place a waterfall over any image you want. Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/waterfall/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/rate/ We give a simple example of an oscillating ball that shows huge differences in the achievable frame rate between browsers on the same system. In Firefox, the movie easily goes to 300 FPS, in Internet Explorer 8, it won't go above 65 FPS. The frame rate is changed programmatically at runtime. We give a simple AS3 class that displays current frame rate and memory consumption. Sun, 06 Dec 2009 19:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/rate/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/paper/ We present an effect meant to recreate the childhood experience of cutting and unfolding paper. Cut out polygons from a folded paper triangle like you would with a scissors and see the beautiful snowflake-like patterns emerge as the paper unfolds. The effect is based on custom AS3 classes that use methods new to Flash Player 10. Sun, 29 Nov 2009 19:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/paper/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/waitshow/ The user clicks on a button, the actions to be performed take a while, so you want to display an hour glass or a message to the user 'Please wait'. Not as easy as it sounds. The most obvious idea of toggling the visibilty of your message within a MOUSE_CLICK handler will not work. AS3 will never interrupt execution of a block of code to update the screen. We show a solution and discuss the issue. Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/waitshow/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/flakes/ We provide a custom AS3 class, SnowFlake, and an applet that creates snowflakes from a drawing generated by the user. The user creates a drawing through simple dragging of dots. Via a series of symmetries and random parameters, the image gives rise to an unlimited number of complex snowflake patterns. We use new to FP10 methods: Graphics.drawPath and Graphics.copyFrom. Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/flakes/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/nova/ This exploding star particle effect will blow you away! Watch the mesmerizing colors of particles and their shadowy trails as they billow away from the core. As always, complete AS3 source code comes with the tutorial. Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/nova/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/gradients/ We show how to create and precisely control gradient fills in AS3 with the createGradientBox method of the Matrix class. We discuss the parameters of the beginGradientFill method and show how to manipulate them to draw programmatically interesting gradient fills. Sat, 07 Nov 2009 18:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/gradients/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/alpha/ In an AS3 Flash CS4 How-To, we look at this question. You assign 'alpha' to a given DisplayObject, say dispObj.alpha=0.8. On the next line you put trace(dispObj.alpha). The traced value is about 0.7969. Actually, the rule seems to be: the true value of 'alpha' is equal to Math.floor(a*256)/256 for an assigned value 'a'. We look at ways of dealing with this discrepancy. Sat, 24 Oct 2009 14:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/alpha/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/ribbons/ We continue our popular series of particle animations with a whimsical new example. This time, the particles consist of line segments which rotate as they move. Small rectangles are drawn between the previous segment location to the new segment, producing the effect of twirling ribbons being swept out in the trajectories. ColorTransform is continuously applied to produce smooth gradient coloring. Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/ribbons/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/rotatetext3d/ Rotating text using 'rotation' property requires embedding fonts. In Flash Player 10 another technique can be used. Instead of 'rotation', you can apply 'rotationZ'. Since 3D objects are converted to bitmaps before rendering, it is a bitmap 'snapshot' of your text field that rotates. Thus, embedding fonts is no longer necessary. We show how to do it and how to use 'scaling correction' technique to minimize blur. Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/rotatetext3d/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/rotatetext/ There's nothing more disconcerting to a new Flash user than to experiment with assets on the stage and witness mysterious behavior that requires deeper understanding of Flash. One example of this comes when one discovers that there is something strange about changing 'rotation' and 'alpha' properties of a dynamic textbox. When rotated, text simply vanishes. In this simple How-To, we demonstrate the process of embedding fonts in the Flash IDE which remedies the problems. Sat, 10 Oct 2009 15:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/rotatetext/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/fountain/ Don't miss this spectacular 'fountain made of particles effect'. The effect uses our custom AS3 classes that, with some variations of parameters, produced our recent, very popular examples of Splashing Rain and Lorenz Attractor in Bubble Form. This new effect in the series shows the versatility of the custom AS3 classes. Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/fountain/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/blursol/ Everyone who works with 3D methods in FP10 is familiar with the blurring issue: the moment an object becomes a 3D object, it blurrs. We present a simple and elegant solution to this issue by Matteo Sisti Sette. His solution consists of a clever 'scaling correction'. Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/blursol/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/bubbles/ Don't miss this very interesting visual effect. The Lorenz Attractor, a choatic dynamical system, is drawn in the form of bubbles which become loose and float away. The bubbles shrink, dissolve, and seem to follow ever-changing pattern. Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/bubbles/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/compass/ We show how to create a draggable compass whose behavior thanks to tweening and a bit of trigonometry appears very realistic. As you drag the compass, the needle turns North. We make heavy use of and discuss the method Math.atan2. Sat, 12 Sep 2009 20:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/compass/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/eztimer/ In this simple How-To, we show an example of how to use the new to AS3 Timer class. In our little applet, the user can control Timer.repeatCount and Timer.delay while the elapsed time is displayed. It becomes clear that Timer.delay time is only approximate, and that a Timer cannot fire more often than ten times the frame rate of the Flash movie. Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/eztimer/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/loadxml/ XML is a vast subject. But often all you want to do is to load an external XML file and process its content for use in your application. How to load an external XML file? How to access its elements and use the content in your code? How to write an XML file. This simple How-To answers all these questions. Sun, 30 Aug 2009 18:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/loadxml/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/externalswf/ A new entry in our growing How-To collection. Through a simple and short example, we illustrate how to load an external SWF file at runtime and how to access its AS3 variables and methods. Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/externalswf/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/rain/ We present a versatile custom AS3 class, RainDisplay. We show examples how, with easy parameter manipulation, you can create a variety of engaging visual effects: rain with splashing raindrops, dripping paint, and much more. Mon, 24 Aug 2009 06:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/rain/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/reflection3d/ We have posted six new How-Tos on our AS3 How To and Tips page. Among them, 3D image reflection that rotates in 3D together with the image. To accomplish the effect, we use gradient masking and new Flash Player 10 3D methods. Another How-To explains gradient masking in AS3. Check it out! Mon, 17 Aug 2009 10:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/reflection3d/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/ We've started a new section! Short, focused examples of how to accomplish specific tasks in AS3. Tips, time savers, hints concerning compiler errors, and more. Among the initial postings: one about the Mouse.cursor property that is new to Flash Player 10. Did you know that in FP10 you can easily change the mouse cursor without tons of code? Neat! Tue, 11 Aug 2009 17:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/howtos/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/cs4billboard/ We use the native 3D methods available in Flash Player 10 as well as several custom ActionScript 3 classes to construct an advertising billboard with a 3D twist. The billboard is fully customizable by editing a simple XML file. Wed, 22 Jul 2009 10:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/cs4billboard/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/gallerykal/ We present a gallery of kaleidoscopic effects and stunning, dynamically generated images. Take a photo of street graffiti, or any other image, and transform it into infinitely many fascinating symmetrical patterns. The tutorial is co-authored by a new member of the Flash and Math team, Dan Gries. Dan's original AS3 effects have become popular in the Flash community. Welcome Dan! Sun, 12 Jul 2009 17:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/gallerykal/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/kalscope/ We use the new ActionScript 3 method, graphics.copyFrom, supported by the Flash Player 10, to create spectacular kaleidoscope effects. We provide a custom AS3 class, Kaleidoscope, that can easily be customized in all respects. A simple change in the intial image passed to the constructor produces dramatic changes in subsequent kaleidoscopic images. Fun to play with! Sun, 05 Jul 2009 20:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/kalscope/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/flip/ It's the ultimate image flip tutorial. We present two custom AS3 classes, TweenFlipCS4 and TweenFlipCS3 prepared for FP10 and FP9, respectively. Flip vertically, horizontally, customize tweens and speed of rotation. In the CS4 version we use native AS3 3D methods. We provide a way to solve the well-known problem of blurring 3D objects. In the CS3 version we use a custom AS3 BitmapTransformer class. Sun, 07 Jun 2009 16:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/flip/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/pp/ If you have more than one 3D object in your movie, manipulating the perspectiveProjection property of the root may not produce satisfactory results. In this tutorial we show how to assign instances of the PerspectiveProjection class to individual display objects, and we show several ways of accomplishing this. The behavior of such assignments may surprise you. Check it out. Tue, 26 May 2009 10:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/pp/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/xmlspinner/ Due to the great popularity of our earlier spinning gallery, we present a much improved version of the gallery and of the underlying SpinnerMenu AS3 class. The new gallery is XML-driven and thus easily customizable; each instance has its own PerspectiveProjection object which makes several instances of the menu in the same movie look good; loaded images can easily be captioned. Don't miss this one! Mon, 18 May 2009 10:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/xmlspinner/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/bridge/fractions/ The custom AS3 'Fraction' class included with this tutorial handles arithmetic of fractions. Three Flash CS3 applets that make use of the class are also provided to demonstrate how the new class works. Within the class definition, we illustrate the 'rest...' and the untyped '*' constructs for function input parameters, which allow for flexible definitions of class methods. Fraction class allows for exact fraction arithmetic and complements our more general MathParser class. Mon, 04 May 2009 17:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/bridge/fractions/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/ticker/ In this effect, we show how to use our custom AS3 class 'NewsTicker' to create a customizable 3D message ticker. We use the new 3D methods available in AS3 for Flash Player 10. Messages are loaded from an external XML file. Each instance of NewsTicker has its own PerspectiveProjection object independent of the PerspectiveProjection of the main movie. We also examine the issue of display objects becoming blurry when placed in the 3D space, the issue particularly bothersome when dealing with text. Mon, 20 Apr 2009 05:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/ticker/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/spingallery/ In this effect, we present a 3D image gallery in Flash CS4 in which the menu of thumbnails is spinning in 3D. The tiles spin asynchonously creating a nice effect. At each spin, a different set of images is revealed on the reverse of each tile. The code can be adapted to create any kind of 3D spinning menu. The custom AS3 SpinnerMenu class at the heart of the effect, uses the new 3D rotation properties available in Flash Player 10. Sun, 29 Mar 2009 17:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/spingallery/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/intermediate/swfload/ Loading external SWF files that contain references to 'stage' requires caution and often extra steps to avoid runtime errors. We discuss the issues involved and give solutions. We also explore the question of unloading loaded content. We explore an exciting new method available in Flash Player 10, Loader.unloadAndStop and its superiority over Loader.unload. Wed, 04 Mar 2009 23:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/intermediate/swfload/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/contours/ We use our custom AS3 classes to build an applet which combines a contour diagram plotter and a 3D function grapher. The user can input formulas for functions and variables' ranges. The applet uses our custom classes, including MathParser, GraphingBoard, and GraphingBoard3D. We provide complete, well-commented source code and a pdf guide for custom classes. Fri, 20 Feb 2009 23:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/contours/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/intermediate/implicit/ The implicit equations grapher presented in this tutorial is another example of how the custom AS3 math classes provided at flashandmath.com can be used to easily create graphing applications. In this tutorial, we use our custom MathParser and GraphingBoard classes that do all the work for you. The tutorial contains complete, well-commented source code. Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/intermediate/implicit/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/basic/simplegraph/ Our custom AS3 class, SimpleGraph, makes creating and customizing functional graphers a snap. It takes hardly more than 30 lines of code to build a graph that will plot any user-defined (or predefined) expression in one variable. This tutorial explains step-by-step how to do it. You can build mathematical function graphers or illustrate easily a dependence between two variables. Check it out! Tue, 27 Jan 2009 14:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/basic/simplegraph/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/book3d/ In this effect, we show how to use our custom AS3 class 'Book' and a sequence of Timers to create a 3D animated book that spins, rotates, and travels through 3D space. We also demonstrate how to flip TextFields and other DisplayObjects in 3D. We use images of our book but the source code can be easily customized. Mon, 19 Jan 2009 22:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/book3d/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/basic/drawpathCS4/index.html The 'drawPath' method in Flash CS4 renders faster than a series of individual lineTo() and curveTo() methods and uses a floating computation so rotation and scaling of shapes is more accurate and gives better results. However, its syntax is a little odd and it uses different rules for fills and lines. This tutorial aims to provide enough examples to illustrate the new method while keeping the code simple enough for a beginner to understand. In particular, we illustrate the winding protocols. Sun, 11 Jan 2009 13:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/basic/drawpathCS4/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/appletsbook/about.html The new book, 'Flash and Math Applets: Learn by Example', is now available at Amazon.com. The book teaches beginning ActionScript 3 programming using examples, many based on the popular tutorials at flashandmath.com. The book shows you how to create effects and interactions from simple to complex. It walks you step-by-step through building dozens of applets. It includes a full chapter on new 3D methods in Flash CS4. Peek inside and download sample chapters! Tue, 30 Dec 2008 10:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/appletsbook/about.html http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/spheregallery/ The new ActionScript 3 3D methods available in Flash Player 10 and Flash CS4 make it very easy to create sophisticated 3D effects that before required advanced tools like Papervision3d. In this example, we show how to build a beautiful 3D spherical image gallery. The sphere of thumbnails can be rotated by the user or it auto rotates. When the user clicks on a thumbnail, an image loads. Building such an impressive gallery requires only a couple of pages of timeline code. Mon, 15 Dec 2008 19:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/spheregallery/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/spacegallery/ A stunning 3D gallery of outer space images! The new 3D ActionScript 3 methods available in Flash Player 10 and Flash CS4 make it possible to literally 'build' complex 3D objects by positioning their elements in Flash's 3D space. It's simple and easy. In this effect, we build a 3D cylindrical gallery. Mon, 24 Nov 2008 19:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/spacegallery/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/appletsbook/ Check out a gallery of examples from the book, 'Flash and Math Applets: Learn by Example'. The book illustrates the progression of ideas and techniques that will take a Flash developer from novice to pro with ActionScript 3 programming. The book includes 'tips for improvements' for those using Flash CS4 as well as an entire chapter on 3D methods in Flash CS4. Thu, 20 Nov 2008 14:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/appletsbook/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/cs4planets/ We create a collection of 3D textured spheres, namely planets, that auto rotate or can be rotated by the user in 3D. We use the AS3 method 'drawTriangles' for texture mapping. The method is new to Flash Player 10 and Flash CS4. A comparison with an earlier version of the app, where a custom AS3 class was used for bitmap distortion, shows that the drawTriangles method significantly improves rendering speed, memory usage, and rendered bitmap quality. Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/cs4planets/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/cs4simple3d/ In this new tutorial at Flash and Math, we present basics of runtime 3D drawing in Flash CS4 done in the simplest possible way. We use the new Matrix3D, Vector3D classes and rotational methods to build a simple renderer for 3D objects drawn at runtime. The objects auto rotate or can be rotated by the user. We show examples of a cube and an icosahedron but you can easily replace those with your own 3D objects. It's amazing how easy it has become. Sun, 02 Nov 2008 15:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/flashcs4/cs4simple3d/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/mathlets/ We added a new section to our site: Flash applets for learning math. With the power of ActionScript 3 and the speed of Flash Player 10, the Flash platform provides an alternative to Java and other tools for creating sophisticated learning modules for math and science. Visit and see what Flash can do for education. Intriquing for educators and Flash developers alike! Thu, 16 Oct 2008 08:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/mathlets/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/intermediate/magglass/ We show how to easily create a magnifying glass effect. When the user mouses over an image, a magnified portion is displayed. We use the bitmapFill method rather than masking to accomplish the effect. Since a high resolution image is loaded at runtime, we show how to create a simple load progress display. The image, the shape and dimensions of the magnifying glass, the magnification factor are all easily customizable. Wed, 01 Oct 2008 01:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/intermediate/magglass/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/planets/ In this experiment we build a gallery of 3D textured planets, including Earth, Mars, Venus and others. The planets auto rotate or can be rotated in 3D by the user. We present a new, easier to customize version of our popular BitmapSphere AS3 class. Since our planets glow, we discuss the AS3 GlowFilter class. Mon, 15 Sep 2008 11:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/planets/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/basic/timers/ In this tutorial at flashandmath.com, we use simple examples to illustrate the AS3 Timer and Date classes and their basic methods. We explain how to use a Timer object to create animated motion or a repeated event. In one of the examples, the user generates a random number and a game piece moves around a board that number of spaces. In another example, we show how to combine the Date class with a Timer object to create a digital clock effect. Mon, 08 Sep 2008 01:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/basic/timers/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/billboard/ Inspired by a recent post from onebyonedesign about billboard-type transitions in Player 10, we present similar effects in Flash CS3. Without rotationX and rotationY properties they have to be done differently but they are doable. Our custom AS3 Billboard class makes it easy to create your own billboards, with your own images (or DisplayObjects), your choice of the number of slices, and the direction of the flip. Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/billboard/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/basic/randompic/ Learn how to store images addresses in an external XML file and load them randomly at runtime. We give a few simple examples: a random image is loaded when a button is clicked; a random image is chosen when the swf loads; several images are randomly shuffled. We illustrate the difference between the AS3 Loader and the URLLoader classes. A response to a question at flashandmath.com forum. Mon, 18 Aug 2008 01:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/basic/randompic/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/p10triangles/ One of the most powerful new AS3 methods that will become available in Flash Player 10 is the drawTriangles method. It allows for sophisticated 2D and 3D bitmap transformations, in particular for 3D texture mapping. In this experiment at flashandmath.com, we illustrate and explain the drawTriangles method in the context of 2D image transformations. The user can contort the image by dragging its corners and change the number of triangles to observe the effects of changing resolution on the transformed image. FP10 Beta 1 and FP10 Beta 2 versions are provided. Mon, 04 Aug 2008 11:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/p10triangles/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/basic/latex/ In this multi-prong tutorial, we show how to use a LaTeX to swf utility to insert elegant, scalable scientific expressions into your Flash movie. We also discuss the ScrollPane component. We show how to configure the component and how to use it for displaying photographs, text, or formulas. Mon, 28 Jul 2008 11:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/basic/latex/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/fourparticles/ Four stunning 3D particle experiments by Dan Gries at flashandmath.com. A sphere separates into several spheres based on the particles color; particles revolve and tend to a gravity center; particles transition throughout a cube, and more. You can rotate and manipulate the particles in 3D. Dan's previous particle post was a hit. Don't miss this one! Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/fourparticles/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/sphere/ In this new flashandmath.com tutorial, we deal with the important subject of texture mapping in AS3. We use custom AS3 classes to paste a bitmap image around a sphere and to create a textured sphere. Spheres that we create can be rotated in 3D with the mouse. We give two examples: a wood-textured sphere and a sphere with a beautiful image pasted over it. The examples are easily customizable. Thu, 17 Jul 2008 01:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/sphere/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/p10cube/ A FP10 experiment at flashandmath.com. We construct an open-sided, interactive cube whose sides are bitmaps. The user can rotate the cube in 3D and change perpective. Sides respond to clicks. Whenever possible, we use simple built-in 3D methods available in Player 10. We use the new AS3 matrix3D class for depths-sorting only. FP10 Beta 1 and FP10 Beta 2 versions are provided. Thu, 10 Jul 2008 01:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/p10cube/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/bridge/movieclips/ A new tutorial at flashandmath.com. The tutorial illustrates various ways of controlling at runtime MovieClips created at design time. We start by placing code on a MovieClip's timeline and end by linking MovieClips to custom AS3 classes. We use bubbling liquid and the Cereal Box Problem as examples. Mon, 07 Jul 2008 01:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/bridge/movieclips/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/intermediate/listeners/ We present the Lights Out Game in which the number of cells is randomly generated at runtime with each new game. Thus, the click listeners attached to each square cell have to be created on the fly. The listeners are similar but different for each square. Don't miss this interesting tutorial at flashandmath.com written by James Hamblin. Mon, 30 Jun 2008 01:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/intermediate/listeners/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/intermediate/morequizzes/ A new tutorial at flashandmath.com. We show a simple way to create quizzes that use CheckBox or ComboBox interfaces. Questions and answers are pulled at runtime from an external XML file. Tue, 24 Jun 2008 01:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/intermediate/morequizzes/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/t1player10/ In this new tutorial at flashandmath.com, we show how to use a few simple 3D features of Player 10, rotationX, rotationY, fieldOfView, to perform free rotations of bitmaps in 3D with perspective and texture mapping. Amazing. And all of these without even using the powerful drawTriangles method or Matrix3D class. We discuss the 3D coordinate system in Player 10 and the Z coordinate versus depth. Tue, 03 Jun 2008 01:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/t1player10/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/rolls/ A new tutorial at flashandmath.com. We present two custom AS3 classes: BitmapRoll and BitmapCylinder. The former takes a bitmap image and coils it into a 3D coil that can be rotated by the user. The latter, wraps a bitmap around a cylinder. Both the coil and the cylinder respond to clicks. The kind of result that will not become easier in Flash Player 10 despite its native 3D capabilities. Tue, 27 May 2008 01:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/rolls/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/widgets/ A tutorial at flashandmath.com by Bri Lance that shows how to create useful AS3 widgets. The widgets flip in 3D. One side of a widget contains user controls that control the other side. The effect is accomplished by taking a 'snapshot' of a Sprite via methods of the AS3 BitmapData class. Such snapshots are combined with 3D rotation techniques. Mon, 19 May 2008 01:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/widgets/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/intermediate/gummy/ A new tutorial at flashandmath.com. We show our custom AS3 BitmapTransformer class in action. In one example we have a bitmap whose vertices can be dragged in an arbitrary way and the image is distorted accordingly in all sorts of contorsions. In the second example, we throw in a dash of tween, and create 'an elastic' image. Great visual effects! Mon, 12 May 2008 01:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/intermediate/gummy/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/intermediate/tricks/ A new tutorial at flashandmath.com. We explore less common ways of using the AS3 Tween class. The class is remarkably flexible. Instead of tweening properties directly related to motion or appearance, we tween a property of an auxiliary object. We show how to use the technique to create tweened nonlinear motion, tweened text effects, and a 'balloon motion' effect. We also illustrate the built-in AS3 easing functions. Tue, 06 May 2008 01:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/intermediate/tricks/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/particles3d/ Don't miss this stunning visual effect at flashandmath.com, created by Dan Gries. A revolving image dissolves into a changing, exploding particle cloud that can be rotated with the mouse before the thousands of particles come together again. Download ActionScript 3 code. Mon, 28 Apr 2008 08:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/particles3d/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/intermediate/radiobuttonquiz/ A new tutorial at flashandmath.com. Learn how to create a simple quiz supplied with content from an external XML data file. This particular quiz structure uses only RadioButton components, but the ideas are adaptable to other interfaces. Like all of our basic and intermediate level tutorials, this one, too, contains detailed, step-by-step explanations. Mon, 21 Apr 2008 01:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/intermediate/radiobuttonquiz/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/tween3d/ A new tutorial at flashandmath.com. We use the AS3 Tween class and the AS3 collection of easing functions to create interesting rotation effects for 3D objects, in our example, a hexagonal cylinder drawn at runtime. The Tween class can tween any numerical property of any object! And it has many events to play with. Great possibilities. Tue, 15 Apr 2008 03:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/tween3d/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/art/ A new tutorial at flashandmath.com. Create your own gallery of visually stunning interactive images made up of parametric curves. We provide a sample gallery and everything you need to experiment on your own and build your own collection. Don't miss this one! Mon, 07 Apr 2008 02:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/art/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/bridge/sliders/ A new tutorial at flashandmath.com. We present custom ActionScript 3 classes HorizontalSlider and VerticalSlider. The classes provide a light-weight alternative to the built-in Flash CS3 slider component. You can use as many of our sliders as you want in one application without increasing the swf size. As an example of usage, we give an applet in which color tints are applied to a photo. Wed, 02 Apr 2008 08:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/bridge/sliders/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/basic/transitions/ A new tutorial at flashandmath.com. We discuss and present examples of how to use a very useful yet somewhat underdocumented AS3 class: the TransitionManager. The class allows for creating many cool transition effects between MovieClips, including Wipe, Blinds, PixelDissolve, Photo, Zoom and others. We show examples of each and demonstrate in action the events 'allTransitionsInDone' and 'allTransitionsOutDone' that are discussed in LiveDocs and seem to work well. We give several simple examples, and then build an xml-driven slide show that uses transitions. Wed, 26 Mar 2008 01:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/basic/transitions/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/menu3d/ A new tutorial at flashandmath.com. We construct a vibrant gallery of flowers on a cube. We provide custom AS3 classes: BitmapTransformer, CubeMenu, and ImageLoader. These classes make it easy to customize and to create 3D menus, galleries and other applications that require image loading and distortion. Tue, 25 Mar 2008 01:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/menu3d/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/bridge/spintake2/ A new tutorial at flashandmath.com. A custom ActionScript 3 class ImageLoader that loads concurrently at runtime any collection of images from external files. Extending the EventDispatcher class and creating custom events. Spinning bitmaps in 3D with distortion for perspective. Be sure to check it out! Thu, 13 Mar 2008 01:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/bridge/spintake2/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/bridge/cardtake1/ A new tutorial at flashandmath.com. We continue our gentle introduction to writing and using AS3 custom classes with Flash CS3. We show how to change our playing card applet so at first most and then all the code resides in custom AS3 classes. We create an image flipping AS3 class with distortion for perspective. We use the class to create a two-card applet. We also discuss the Document Class in Flash CS3. Wed, 05 Mar 2008 01:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/bridge/cardtake1/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/card/ A new tutorial at flashandmath.com. We create a simple, easily customizable applet in which a playing card is flipped when the user clicks on it. The flip takes place in 3D and the corresponding bitmaps are distorted for perspective. Such distortion requires some interesting techniques, including slicing of bitmaps. Wed, 27 Feb 2008 01:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/card/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/bridge/intro/ A new tutorial at flashandmath.com. We discuss the three ways that AS3 custom classes can be used with Flash CS3. Then we present a simple applet. In the initial version of the applet, the code is placed on the MainTimeline. We show how to move the code into a custom class. Then we use the class to construct variations on the applet. This tutorial is a part of a new category at flashandmath.com, Bridging The Gap: Writing AS3 Classes. Tue, 19 Feb 2008 15:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/bridge/intro/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/dode/ In this new ActionScript 3 tutorial at flashandmath.com, we show how to build two 3D menus on a dodecahedron whose 12 faces are pentagons. In the first example, the faces are pentagonal bitmaps, in the second example, we have circular bitmaps placed inside pentagons. Wed, 13 Feb 2008 12:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/dode/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/motion3d/ A new tutorial at flashandmath.com in the Advanced Section. We build an applet in which the user can enter parametric equations for a curve in the xyz-space. The applet then plots the curve and displays the velocity and the acceleration vectors as the user traces the curve. We use our custom MathParser class to parse input by the user. The tutorial contains a pdf guide on using the parser and other custom classes. Tue, 05 Feb 2008 16:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/motion3d/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/basic/tween/ A new tutorial at flashandmath.com in the Basic Section. We give several examples of using the AS3 Tween class. This class allows for easy creation of interesting visual effects and animations. We build control panels that smoothly slide in and out of place, with a nice 'bounce' to them. We also show a 'spin and snap back when dragged' example. Mon, 04 Feb 2008 06:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/basic/tween/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/cube/ A new tutorial at flashandmath.com. We show how to rotate bitmaps in 3D in Flash CS3. We build a 3D menu on a cube whose sides are bitmaps and which can be rotated by the user. We discuss the transform.matrix property of display objects in AS3 and the Matrix class. Wed, 30 Jan 2008 13:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/cube/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/surfaces/ Don't miss this new tutorial at flashandmath.com! We build a collection of spectacular 3D surfaces that can be rotated by the user. Then we create a custom ActionScript 3 class that makes it easy to use the collection for creating a variety of visually engaging Flash apps. Thu, 24 Jan 2008 16:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/surfaces/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/tetra/ Tutorial posted January 15, 2008 in the advanced tutorials section. We show how to build a 3D menu on a tetrahedron. When the user clicks on a face of the tetrahedron, an external jpeg loads. We discuss in detail bitmap fills, loading external files, the Loader class in ActionScript 3 as well as the BitmapData and Bitmap classes. Tue, 15 Jan 2008 18:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/tetra/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/basic/colors/ Tutorial posted January 3, 2008 in the basic tutorials section. We show two applets in which we use transform.colorTransform property of display objects in ActionScript 3 to change at runtime colors of movie clips created at authoring time. We discuss ColorTransform class and show how to use it. Thu, 03 Jan 2008 23:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/basic/colors/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/basic/mousedraw2/ Tutorial posted December 26, 2007 in the basic tutorials section. A sequel to a previous tutorial. The two tutorials cover: the ColorPicker component, a custom mouse pointer, drawing with the mouse, and a touch of masking. Sat, 29 Dec 2007 08:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/basic/mousedraw2/index.html http://www.flashandmath.com/ Visit our site www.flashandmath.com often. We provide a large and growing collection of ActionScript 3 tutorials for Flash CS3. For beginners and advanced Flash developers. Timeline scripting as well as AS3 custom classes. Many examples and fla files to download. Open source, free, and designed to help Flash developers everywhere. We add new tutorials frequently. This site initially designed for math and science educators is now popular among Flash developers community in general. Check it out! Sat, 29 Dec 2007 08:00:00 EST http://www.flashandmath.com/index.html